The Private Lives of Writers

Published: December 31, 1989

To the Editor:

The picture of the diabolical Stephen James Joyce feeding letters one by one into a roaring fire is no doubt very attractive and dramatic to my detractors, but untrue. Alternatively, I am depicted as sitting at a table in front of a large ashtray with a box of matches burning letters one by one with a sardonic grin on my face, wincing but smiling maliciously whenever I singe my fingers - also false. The facts are that in June 1988 I announced that, as a result of Brenda Maddox's book ''Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom,'' I had destroyed all my aunt Lucia's letters to my wife and myself. No mention was made of how they were destroyed; I leave this to the fertile imagination of Joyceans. I can say unequivocally that they were not burned.

Regarding the destroyed correspondence, these were all personal letters from Lucia to us. They were written many years after both Nonno and Nonna (''Grandfather'' and ''Grandmother'' in Italian) died and did not refer to them. Also destroyed were some postcards and one telegram from Samuel Beckett to Lucia. This was done at Sam's written request. It was not something he said in passing, as Deirdre Bair, the author of ''Samuel Beckett: A Biography,'' implied in a 1988 New York Times article. She should know better.

Janna Malamud Smith's essay ''Where Does a Writer's Family Draw the Line?'' (Nov. 5) discusses what she and her family should or should not do with her father's papers and letters. She does not mention other Malamud family papers. In the end she, in essence, comes out on my side.

I have not destroyed any papers or letters in my grandfather's hand, yet. Unlike others close to the Joyce family, I do not sell Joyce papers, letters, memorabilia, etc. I keep those I am fortunate enough to have, buy others and destroy some, such as Lucia's letters to us, which if seen by outsiders and made public would be an intolerable, unbearable invasion of my family's privacy. I have not made a profession of being James Joyce's grandson but made my own way in life in an entirely different field as an international civil servant. I have rarely if ever written about my grandparents, and that is as it should be.

Talking or writing about privacy in the United States is a very delicate, thorny matter. Notwithstanding, I firmly believe that there is a part of every man or woman's life, no matter how famous he or she may be, that should remain private.

Furthermore, I believe that the Joyce family's privacy has been invaded more than that of any other writer in this century. Enough is enough, even too much. As my grandparents would both say: Basta!

Many Joyceans feel they need to know more, always more about his life, in fact everything in order fully to understand and fathom his writing. This view is contradicted by others who are not interested in his life and do not feel it is at all necessary to have greater insight into his books.

Ms. Smith writes about the biographer's need to make money or further an academic career. It is not just biographers but scholars more generally, and for many of them these are the primary concerns. Furthermore, they have no regard for the fallout on those still living who can be and are affected by what they write.

Writing in The New Statesman and Nation on Jan. 18, 1941, five days after my grandfather's death, Cyril Connolly made the following comment: ''I hope, but only for the time, to read through him and one day make a study of this literary anti-Pope, this last great mammoth out of whose tusks so many smaller egoists have carved their self-important ivory towers.'' While Connolly was looking at the past rather than to the future, these were prophetic words indeed.

Some ask, how would James and Nora Joyce feel about this outrageous invasion of the most intimate part of their lives? The editor and translator Maria Jolas told us not once but several times, and in no uncertain terms, that Nonna had repeatedly tried to find and recover the now all too famous intimate correspondence of 1909. If she had been able to do so, Nonna would have destroyed these letters.

In the autumn of 1909 Nonno twice explicitly referred to them in other letters to Nonna. On Oct. 25, 1909, he wrote: ''Keep my letters to yourself, dear. They are written for you.'' And on Dec. 10, 1909, he mentioned them again: ''I wired you Be careful. I meant be careful to keep my letters secret.'' If the foregoing is not clear, then what is? Although penniless at the time, he nevertheless cabled Trieste from Dublin. If my wife or I were to find any more such private, intimate letters, they would be immediately destroyed.

Incidentally, I have never read these intimate letters, nor do I intend to. Voyeurism, pseudoliterary or otherwise, is simply not my cup of tea. My grandparents' phantasms - what they did in their intimacy - were strictly their business and nobody else's.

To say and write, as I have, that my wife and I thank our lucky or unlucky stars for never having had children, to whom we would have to explain this intimate family history as laid bare for any and all to see, is something terrible. Such a contre nature statement should serve to demonstrate clearly the depth and sincerity of our feelings and commitment. It is something that has been forced upon us by the busybodies, snoopers, muckrakers, etc.